Blog | International Investigative Group

28 July 2020

Earlier this week, I was able to speak with Dan Ribacoff, a licensed private investigator with 30 years of experience to gather some information on how to do your own electronic surveillance. He immediately told me “For the art of surveillance, modern-day technology has been an absolute godsend and has created a new form of surveillance: Electronic Surveillance. Before there was GPS, Private Investigators were all over the place trying to do surveillance. Follow that cab! Follow that guy in the red shirt! This way, that way. It was an absolute nightmare. GPS would have saved us a lot of trouble (and a lot of headaches too).” Ribacoff then explained all of the Do’s and Don’ts of electronic surveillance:

What is Electronic Surveillance?

Electronic Surveillance is technically defined as the observation and gathering of information⁠—usually on the sly⁠—with the aid of electronics such as cameras, microphones, and digital recorders, among other devices.

Why do Electronic Surveillance Instead of Physical Surveillance?

1. You can’t physically be at the surveillance location: Often times, when you are conducting surveillance, it must be done in private, cramped, and indoor locations that you cannot physically access or blend in.

2. You don’t want to be at the surveillance location: Maybe it would be too much effort and money wasted to either track many people at once, travel many miles to investigate, or miss work to investigate.

Electronic Surveillance Has Many Applications

–Business Owners: Watching employees to make sure that they are not slacking off during work or stealing products/money from

the business.

–Moms and Dads: Making sure that their nannies/babysitters are not up to no good or possibly harming/mistreating their child.

–People with Elderly Parents: Checking in to make sure that they haven’t fallen and can’t get up or to make sure that they are being properly cared for if they have elder-aids in their home.

–Pet Owners: Monitoring their furry friends while on vacation or out of the house for a few hours.

The Rules of Electronic Surveillance

–Permission: You must have permission or the legal authority to perform electronic surveillance. For example, you can’t just download Find My Friends onto someone else’s iPhone and use it to track them. That would be eavesdropping or invasion of privacy, punishable crimes.

–Ownership: If you’re looking to install tracking software onto a computer or a cell phone, you have to ask yourself: Who owns this device? If it’s you, your husband who gave you permission to do it, or the guy next door who has legally contracted with you to perform electronic surveillance, then you’re in the clear. If the answer is your mother in law who has no idea that you’re tracking her, not a great idea from a legal standpoint.

–Audio Surveillance: This can be pretty tricky. Telephone recording laws govern the civilian recording of telephone conversations. By federal law, at least one party taking part in a call must be notified of an audio recording of a telephone conversation (That’s why they they tell you that your call is being monitored for quality assurance when you call a customer service line). This means that if you live in an all-party-consent state, you have to tell somebody if you are recording your conversation with them. It also means that putting a recording device in someone’s car is illegal if you’re not present, whether you’re in an all-party-consent state or a one-party consent state.

–Video Surveillance: For the most part, security cameras are completely legal in the US as long as they do not invade anyone else’s privacy (That’s why you can’t put cameras in restrooms or changing rooms).

Using Cameras

More and more people are using surveillance cameras to keep an eye on family members, employees, babysitters, etc. Newer technology is making it much easier to put the cameras into inconspicuous places like teddy bears, clocks, houseplants, and many others.

Cameras that record audio and video can be very useful for any He said/She Said scenario. When I do polygraphs, I always get my client’s consent to record audio and video so that if they confess to something and then deny that I ever asked them that question, I can say, “Let’s go to the videotape!”.

Using Spyware

Spyware is software that is installed on a computer and gathers information about a user’s browsing habits, intercepts personal data, and transmits this information to a third party, which, as a private investigator, is you. Companies around the world use all different kinds of spyware to make sure that the business is protected and secure. as an employee or visitor of a business, you have absolutely no right to privacy when using a company computer or device. If you work for a large company like Amazon or NBC, and you start sending out e-mails or watching porn on your work computer, they’re gonna know about it because it’s not technically your computer… so make sure to keep it classy in the workplace.

Let’s say that you have a family computer and you have children. You want to install spyware on that computer to make sure that your children aren’t communicating with any creeps out there online. That’s perfectly fine because minors don’t have that expectation to privacy or their rights to privacy. The same goes for any of their personal computers that you’ve bought for them. If you bought it, you own it and you give them permission to use it under your supervision, just like an employee at a business.

Although it’s rare, there can be confidentiality issues to spyware sometimes. Let’s say that your spouse is a lawyer or doctor or is working for a government agency and they work with confidential information. If they buy a laptop or computer for work, you can’t really monitor what he/she does on that computer because they are working with confidential information. There are gray areas, but, of course, when in doubt, contact an attorney for advice. That’s always the safest move to make sure that you’re not accidentally breaking the law.

Monitoring by Phone

There are tons of cell phone monitoring softwares out there, or you can use cell phone locators that are specifically designed to track lost phones to actually track your family members, friends, or employees (Because who in their right mind would go anywhere without their cellphone anymore?). A lot of businesses today are issuing smartphones and tablets to their employees so they can track their employees movements during business hours. It’s sort of like punching a time clock and monitoring their actions while working. For example, look at this scenario with a meat company and their deliveryman:

“Where’d you go today?”

“I made deliveries at these 15 delis around town.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s bullshit. It says right here that you sat in a movie theater parking lot for 3 hours.”

A little while ago, my friend who worked as a salesman for a brewery told me that the company gave him an iPad to use. They told him outright, “We are going to use this to track your location. We want to make sure that you’re not playing a round of golf or doing something else on company time.” My friend then came to me asking how to turn the damn thing off. I’m like “Tom, try doing some work for once…”

Using Caller ID

Caller Identification, better known as Caller ID, is a great tool for keeping tabs on who is calling your home or business. For those who are unfamiliar with what Caller ID is, it’s a service that allows you to identify the phone number of incoming callers before even answering calls. But what about when you want to make a call and not have your number displayed? As a Private Investigator, you need to remain private at all times.

Let’s say that you want to call your husband to see if he’s really at the office when he says he is, but you don’t want to call from your cell phone or the house phones because he’ll recognize them and he’ll know that you’re checking up on him. You can’t do Caller ID Spoofing (using a service to masquerade as someone else by falsifying the number that appears on Caller ID as that person’s number), because that’s now illegal. You also don’t want to use the private number feature on your phone because it’s incredibly unlikely that your husband will answer a phone call from a private number. What do you do?

The answer is Burners (Mobile apps that offer temporary, disposable phone numbers). They’re sort of like a legal way of Caller ID Spoofing, because you’re not sending electronically false information. Google also offers phone numbers, but they’re not as burnable.

Using Burners

As a private investigator, burnable numbers are a go-to tool, because a lot of the times, I want to find out information about someone and I want to probe. If I want to find out somebody’s work history, I can call them from a burnable cell phone number and say “I’m calling from Who’s Who and we’re doing a page on you for the internet. It’s completely free. I just need your employment history for the page.” If they answer the phone and I’m convincing enough, they’ll tell me everything that I want to know about them. I can even leave a message and have them call me back on the burner number because it’s technically a real number. Eventually, once I’ve gathered all of the information that I need, I can burn the phone number, and it’s basically untraceable.

So now that you’ve gotten another burner and you’ve called your husband and discovered that he’s not at work and he’s been lying this whole time, you can burn that number that you’re using without him ever knowing that it was you. The only way for him to trace it is if he somehow gets a subpoena (which he won’t get) or a for law enforcement to issue a court order (which they won’t do as long as you don’t break any laws).

Remember that a burner phone doesn’t make you invincible. If you call up the authorities using a burner phone number and make a threat like “I’m gonna plant a bomb on a subway”, they will find you. They’ll get a subpoena, they’ll trace the number back to you, and you’ll be behind bars faster than you can say “Hey man, it was just a prank”. Long story short, you don’t want to commit a crime while burning. You don’t want to make threats, defraud someone else, or steal money. You only want to use this for investigative purposes. If your husband calls up the authorities and says “Someone called me asking for my employment record and now the number’s not in service”, they’ll probably just laugh at him as say “You got played buddy”.

Untraceable Phones

Another thing that you can do when you want to place an untraceable call is to get yourself an untraceable phone. All you have to do is go to Best Buy or any other electronics store and buy a Tracphone. It’s a prepaid phone with no contract. When you call with a Tracphone, the general calling area of the call is known, but the ID of the person who made the call is unknown because the phone is not registered to anyone in particular. However, you have to take certain precautions when buying a Tracphone:

-Credit cards are traceable, so make sure that you pay with cash.

-You don’t want to get caught on security camera buying the phone, so wear a hat/wig and sunglasses when you buy it. Also, refrain from looking up at any cameras in the store.

-Your real cellphone can track you 24/7, so don’t bring your real cellphone with you when you buy the Tracphone.

-Your E-ZPass can also track you, so don’t take that with you either.

Remember that mistakes are easy to make, and that even one slip-up is Game Over.

ID-ing Private Numbers

Now, let’s say that instead of making the call, you’re receiving calls from a private number at your home. You suspect that your wife has a secret boyfriend and he’s the one calling at night (I guess nobody sleeps anymore). She keeps rushing to the phone every time it rings. Is there a way to find out who’s number that is? Yes, there is.

1. You can use TrapCall: a free mobile app that can unmask the blocked and restricted Caller ID, blacklist harassing callers and even record incoming calls. It’s a simple install on your mobile device and requires minimal set up.

2. Use an 800 number: Callers can’t block their phone numbers when they call 800 numbers; It strips the Caller ID and will always register the calling number. How do you obtain an 800 number? Contact the International Investigative Group. We have a series of fake 800 phone numbers that we use to intercept the phone numbers of private callers. We can then have calls to your house forward to the 800 number for a day or two and find out who’s really been calling. Even if they don’t leave a message, we’ll still be able to see the real number that they called from, so the joke will be on them!

If you need professional assistance for surveillance or any investigation for that matter, do not hesitate to contact us at hello@iigpi.com, or at (212) 987-0808

22 July 2020

Basic investigating is a pretty easy task, but it’s important to remember that nearly all fifty states in the US require private investigators to be licensed, and many government municipalities are starting to crack down on unlicensed operations. What does this mean for you? It means that you, as a civilian, start your own business as a private investigator without a proper license, nor are you allowed to conduct any private investigations for hire. However, there is nothing illegal about conducting your own private investigations for personal matters. Virtually anyone with the proper training and lots of practice can conduct their own investigations, but, according to Dan Ribacoff, there’s a few questions that you need to ask yourself first if you want to be successful in getting the results that you want:

1. Are you willing to work around the clock?

Being a private investigator isn’t your typical Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 job. You’ve got to be able to work holidays, weekends, late nights, weather storms, or whatever it may be. Sometimes, you can be on a stakeout doing surveillance, having to “sit on” a guy for sixteen, seventeen, or even eighteen hours at a time (See how to conduct physical surveillance). You have to be willing to put in the work at any time.

2. Are you willing to do your homework?

For licensed professional investigators, private investigation is a para-law enforcement-type of position. Often times, you have to testify in court, so you have to familiarize yourself with the legal dos and don’ts of investigating. Amateur investigators also need to understand lawful matters, such as citizens’ rights and privacy laws. You don’t want to do anything illegal by accident and you definitely don’t want to end up on the wrong end of a civil lawsuit.

3. Do you have a good poker face?

Sometimes, in order to find out the truth, you have to tell a lie and make it seem believable. Private investigators and even police officers do it on a daily basis. Once, I was conducting a stakeout outside of a target’s house and then all of a sudden, a guy comes up and knocks on my car window.

He asked, “What are you doing here?”

Without hesitation, I answered “I’m an auto repossessor.”

“Who’s car are you here to repossess?”

“I can’t tell you that, because then the guy’s not going to give me the car.”

“You’re not here to repossess my car, are you?”

“Do you drive a Mercedes?”

“No.”

“Then you’re find bro.”

After that, he left me alone and didn’t even give me a second glance. As long as you look and act credible, you’re polite, respectful, and not breaking the law—it’s pretty likely that they’re going to believe you.

4. Are you a good actor?

Sometimes, telling a good lie isn’t convincing enough. If you’re trying to gather information by deception, you have to be able to play different roles, just like an actor. One day, I’m a news reporter working on a groundbreaking story. The next day, I may be your old high school classmate looking to organize a thirty year reunion party. I could also be doing a background check for an employer. Hell, I may even be your long-lost Uncle Fred. (Trust me, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep have got nothing on me.) You have to ask yourself if you can convince somebody that you’re someone else? As a private eye, you may have to.

5. Are you willing to travel out of your neighborhood?

A good friend of mine is a veterinarian. He owns a chain of veterinary clinics and, at this point in his career, he just does the management and lets his staff take care of the rest. Long story short, he gets bored and needs something to occupy his time every day. He calls me one day and says, “I’d love to be a private investigator. It seems so exciting. Would you hire me?” I told him “Yeah, I need to interview a couple of people in the Marcy Houses project in Brooklyn for an investigation, why don’t you come with me.” He goes, “Are you kidding me? I’m not going to the housing project!” Guess what? That means that you’re not cut out to be a private investigator.

Lots of people come up to me asking to be a private investigator because they think that it’s glamorous work all the time. It most definitely is not. We often rate neighborhoods based on how many guns we need to carry when we’re conducting an investigation there—a one-gun, two-gun, or three-gun neighborhood. I’ve had to investigate in plenty of three-gun neighborhoods and trust me, it’s not a fun experience. As a private eye, you have to go wherever the job takes you.

6. Are you willing to travel out of your comfort zone?

Remember those old Motorola beepers that everyone had in the 90’s? We used to have a beeper that had a little pinhole camera with a wire that you could attach to a video recorder. My agents would put it in a backpack and walk around the streets of Manhattan like messengers, and they’d have the beepers in their pockets and they could then film people in public areas without being spotted. One time, an insurance company executive came to me and said, “This girl was in a car accident. She says she can’t work, but we think that she’s working and I need proof.”

It turns our that the woman who we would have to investigate was an exotic dancer in the New Jersey area. We followed her, and she went to this place called Heartbreakers, the strip club that she worked at. I put one of my best agents on the case, a Puerto Rican guy named Carlos. (You can put a Latino guy anywhere—in the city, the suburbs, a farm—and he’ll fit right in. That’s why it is so important and effective to have a diverse team of investigators.)

I said to Carlos, “You have to get footage of this girl dancing to prove that she’s not injured and able to work. Be careful because they search you when you go into these clubs to make sure that you can’t get in with a camera.” So Carlos goes into his car, takes apart his camera equipment and sticks it into his pants by his crotch, knowing that security won’t reach down there when they search him. When he got into the place, he went into the bathroom and put the camera back together. He then stuck the unit back into his pants and put that beeper camera through his shirt, puncturing a hole for the wire.

He took a seat near the stage and waits for the target. All of the dancers come out and get into a circle, including the girl who was supposed to be injured, but she was dancing with full range of motion and not wearing the back brace that she claimed she needed at all times (Though, she wasn’t wearing much else either).

In the video, you can see that all of the guys who are watching give her $10, too which she opens up her bikini top and lets them have a squeeze. Eventually she gets to Carlos, and what does he do?… he gives her $10 and has himself a squeeze… on the video that I would have to show in court! I’m like, “Carlos, we have to show this to a judge, and he’s gonna see the insurance investigator squeezing a stripper’s boobs!” He said, “I had to do it. Everyone else was doing it and I had to blend in.” He was absolutely right. This is a prime example of being able to get out of your comfort zone. This is the kind of craziness that you are bound to wind up doing as an investigator.

7. Can you be adaptable?

As a private investigator, you always have to expect the unexpected. I had a client who wanted me to follow her husband. No problem. She says he’s planning a trip to the Poconos in Pennsylvania to go fishing with some friends, so I put two of my agents on him. The husband had a Ford Expedition and my agents both had smaller Hondas. All of a sudden, the guy starts heading north instead of west, where he said he was going, and he just keeps on driving further and further for hours. My guys call me up and say, “We’re in Vermont and we’re almost out of gas.” I told them to keep going because if they stop for gas, they’ll lose the target for sure.

Finally, when they were quite literally running on fumes, the husband pulls into a motel and meets his girlfriend. Here we thought we would just have to follow him for about two hours to the Poconos, and end up driving all the way to Vermont. You just never know what’s going to happen during an investigation. Once you’re tailing someone, you could be gone for a few hours, days, or even a week.

8. Can you be discreet?

One of my part-time agents, Bill, previously was an FBI surveillance operative. He’s a real nebbishy, nerdy guy—no wife, no girlfriend, no kids. whenever I had a surveillance in New York City, I would use him as a foot agent. I’d go with Bill and a few other agents on a job to follow a target, and I’d say into my phone, “Bill, the target is looking in the window at Men’s Wearhouse.” And Bill would say, “Yeah I’ve got him.” Meanwhile, I’m looking around and I say to myself, “Where the hell is Bill?”.

The guy could basically disappear and still have the best view of the target. That’s how good Bill is. As a private investigator, you have to be like a chameleon and blend just like Bill did. If people are looking and staring at you, you’re not doing your job.

9. Do you have a network of friends to help you out?

A good private investigator will often utilize teams of operatives. The more sets of eyes and ears on the case, the better. When I have to do surveillance in New York City, I’ll always use another two agents at the very minimum. Together, we can watch all of the exits and entrances of a target’s building, forming a full 360 degrees of surveillance around them. I’ve been on operations where I brought five or six guys with me and it still wasn’t enough to get the job done. It always pays to have good friends!

10. Are you tech savvy?

A lot of investigations that I conduct today are done via my computer or smartphone: locating assets, tracking people, etc. It is incredibly essential that you have basic technology skills like using search engines, social media, digital cameras, and voice recorders.

11. Do you have the guts?

To be an investigator, you have to have guts, chutzpah, cojones. You have to be willing to put yourself into risky or potentially dangerous situations. Remember that with most cases, you will be dealing with lowlifes, liars and bottom feeders—fathers who walked out on their families, mothers who stole from their own children, employees who schemed their bosses. You have to track them down and interact with them, all while remaining as cool as a cucumber (even though you may be shaking in your boots).

One time, I was working with the NYPD on an insurance investigation and wearing a wire in order to enter the home of a very high-ranking member of the Gambino Crime Family and gather evidence. I was pretending to be an art buyer who was looking to purchase stolen artwork. The cops were waiting outside, and would come barreling in if they heard me say the code word, “How ’bout those Mets?”. Luckily, the operation went smoothly and I didn’t have to say the code word, but I had to remain calm and collected for that to happen.

12. Can you think on your feet?

When I was first starting out, I used to do a lot of disability and worker’s comp investigations for insurance companies. We often performed what is called a telephone activity check, where I would try to develop a pattern of when a target was home and when he wasn’t home so I could plan a surveillance.

Now, I couldn’t just repeatedly call this guy without raising suspicion, so I would create pretext of some kind. Sometimes I would say that I was calling from the programming department to conduct a survey to see what TV shows the subject was watching. Other times, I would tell them that if they cooperated with me, I’d send them a gift card, and then I actually would (otherwise I would be defrauding them.

My favorite one was when I would call a subject and pretend to be a crazy religious fanatic. I would say, “This is Virgil. I’m calling to praise the Lord.” They’d hang up, and then I’d call back and say, “How come you have so much hatred in your heart for the Lord?” and they would hang up again and again, but eventually, I would get a good feel of when they were home or when they were out. They’d be annoyed with me, but never suspicious.

One time, however, things didn’t exactly go as I planned.

“Is Richard home?” I asked when a woman picked up the phone.

“Yes, who’s calling?” she said

“This is Virgil. I’m calling to praise the Lord.”

She said, “Oh, hallelujah, brother. I go to church every day and my husband is reading the Bible right now.”

I was stunned and said “May I read you some passages from the scripture?”

“Yes!” she said.

Meanwhile, I don’t have a Bible in front of me. My secretary at the time, Jean, was a religious woman, and she was whispering, “Bible.com… Bible.com”, so I go on Bible.com and start reading a passage. That lady almost busted me! That’s why it’s so important to be able to think on your feet as a private investigator. Things don’t always go to plan, so you have to be ready the second that [you know what] hits the fan.

If you need professional assistance for any type of investigation, do not hesitate to contact us at hello@iigpi.com, or at (212) 987-0808

26 February 2020

In the modern climate of technology advancements, it is becoming increasingly easy to scam someone using widely available dating applications such as Tinder or Internet chat rooms and social media platforms. Often times, it is hard for us to watch from a side when your family member or friend falls for a ridiculous romance dating scam that usually revolves around cheating them of money. As such, it would be wise for you to employ professionals who are experts in investigation and security. Here at International Investigative Group, we have a team of competent investigators who are experts on such dating scams and how to avoid a catfish or date scammer.

Types of Dating Scams

Online date scammers usually engage in scams that require victims to pay an “advanced fee”. They can request money from victims in exchange for promises of love or even sexual favors but disappear as soon as they receive their ill-gotten gains. Another type of scam involves the date scammer asking for money so that they can visit their victim, promising a date. However, they always seem to run into difficulties which require an even larger amount of money. Oftentimes, many victims fall prey to these scams or catfish techniques and end up losing large amounts of money. In severe cases, victims have become so convinced that they lose all their life savings. Below are some ways that you can spot a dating scam.

The Date Scammer Looks Too Beautiful to be True

Many old people who have low self-esteem and seem to perceive themselves as someone who is not attractive anymore often end up getting entrenched in such scams. It is always easier to fall for such dating scams when the person in question looks too perfect to be true. Scammers are known to use photos belonging to beautiful models in order to catfish their victims. In order to prevent this from happening, you can choose to take a screenshot of their profile photos and search them online. If there are no matches, chances are that the photos are original.

If you want to verify that the person who you are talking to is really who they seem to be in their pictures, it would be a good move to meet them virtually beforehand. Tools like FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, etc. can allow you to see a live view of the person that you’ve met on the internet before you meet them in person. If they don’t agree to a virtual meeting first or they cover their camera during the virtual meeting, then you have your answer right there about whether or not it’s a catfish. Lack of transparency and having something to hide have a strong correlation.

The Date Scammer Falls in Love Really Fast

Although this could definitely happen in real life, chances are that if a person who looks like a professional model chats with you online and claims to fall in love within a few days, it is an obvious dating scam. They are simply playing with your heart strings and making you think that they could never hurt you because they are in love with you.

This is a huge red flag to look out for especially if they follow up their declarations of love to you with a request for your money. From what I’ve seen, 99.9% of the time that someone asks someone they’ve met on the internet for money, it’s a scam.

Their Email Address Does not Match their Names

Usually when their email address is completely different from their “real name”, then you know that something is definitely off about that person. This is usually a sign that that they are using an alias so that they can trick you into doing favors for them without leaving a trace for them to be caught.

In this case, a background check can be your best friend and tell you everything that you need to know. With the name that they’ve given you and their said-location, finding them and their information shouldn’t be too difficult. The easiest place to start would be with their social media. If they look like a model in their pictures, but have under 100 followers on instagram or very few facebook friends, it’s pretty easy to tell that it’s just a fake burner account that they made for that alias.

The Scammer Wants to Know Your Personal Information and Email Really Quickly

Regardless of the platform that you meet the scammer on, they would want to move the conversation to email correspondence or some other form of communication because there is a higher chance that they might get caught on the original application. Furthermore, when they move the correspondence to a more private setting, they can carry on scamming their victims without the supervision of authorities (See Identity Theft: 10 Ways to Protect Your Identity).

19 February 2020

Unbeknownst to many, the easiest asset to hide is actually a bank account. It is important to note that there is no existing central database today that keeps bank account records of everyone in the country. As a result of this, locating hidden assets was extremely difficult and controversial up until 1999, when regulations were put in place to ensure that this was not the case anymore. Here at International Investigative Group, we have a team of professional private investigators who specialize in locating hidden assets for any case you might encounter.

What are some Common Hidden Assets?

Hidden assets can also come in other forms such as property and even vehicles. Under some circumstances such as a lawsuit which might threaten to seize an individual’s assets, people might try to transfer the ownership of these assets to other people to prevent seizure. The most common places to hide your assets are under different aliases, with close family members, in life insurance policies, bonds, vehicles and investments.

Investigating Tax Returns

It cannot be denied that a large percentage of Americans own more than one bank account or insurance policy. Therefore, a person’s tax returns are a good place to gather information about bank accounts and other forms of investments. In order to retrieve this information however, a subpoena is needed to give you the access that you require.

Real Estate vs. Cash Transactions

It is usually easier for most investigators to track fraudulent conveyance of property and real estate in comparison to cash transactions. This is because for real estate transactions, investigators can easily find out who the buyers and sellers are by searching online or at the state’s deeds office. Usually when investigating real estate assets, the date of the transfer of title or ownership is important. The closer the transfer is to the date of a bankruptcy filing or oversight, the higher the probability of a fraudulent conveyance.

The Debtor’s Examination

In the process of the debtor’s examination, it is your legal right to demand information from your debtor about where their bank account is located. Although this might seem like a convenient idea, there are certain drawbacks to it. For example, if you demand that they reveal this information, the debtor can quickly transfer money out from that account before you can even get close to it. Therefore, if you happen to locate a bank account that contains some money, it might be a more viable option to retrieve database records that are available at the bank.

Acquiring Hidden Assets Via The Turnover Order

Essentially, this procedure allows you to order your debtor to turn over any non-exempt property which they might own to the judgement holder. As such, the judgement holder would be able to better retrieve available assets in the case where a debtor’s property cannot be seized using normal legal procedures. This is usually done as a last option to satisfy the given judgement but does not require any post-judgement remedies by the judgement holder before executing it.

12 February 2020

Corporate fraud is extremely dangerous to businesses and can threaten to bring down entire corporations. It can be very hard to detect and can go be unknown to management for many years. Sometimes by the time it is found out, it might be too late because of the damage that has been done and the number of people involved in the fraud. For corporate fraud, when more people are involved, the problem can be infinitely harder to solve because it is much easier for the culprits to cover each other’s tracks and hide the financial reports from their superiors. Here at International Investigative Group, we have a team of experience professionals who are experts at investigating corporate fraud cases.

What to Expect During Investigations

It is important that when there is even an inkling of suspicion, you take corrective action as quickly as possible. Once the investigation starts, it will be revealed to you how long the fraud has been going on and the results of the corporate fraud on your company. In some high profile cases, investigators have been known to expose entire companies of their fraudulent behaviors and what they do to cheat their customers of their money.

How do the Investigations Work?

There is actually no hard and fast method for all corporate fraud cases. The methods that are used in such investigations are usually dependent on the specific case. However, the standard procedure for most cases involves speaking and interviewing the executives and employees who are suspected of committing the fraud, and collecting information that can help with the case. Some of this information consists of financial statements and any documents that might be missing.

It might be shocking to realize, but usually the employees who are more likely to engage in such fraudulent behaviors are those who think that they have a higher level of protection and privacy as compared to their lower-level colleagues. They might utilize channels of communication that are private and not associated to the company. The best way to uncover such information from these individuals is to hire an investigator who is experienced in this field and has the means to carry out surveillance on the suspects.

How to Prevent Corporate Fraud

According to expert private investigator, Dan Ribacoff, “It only takes one bad apple to ruin a whole basket of apples. Similarly, it only takes one single employee to start engaging in corporate fraud before the problem gets out of hand.” Although it is safe to say that most corporate workers in the country are honest and loyal to their companies, it only takes a small percentage of dishonest workers to start corrupting the rest of their colleagues. Usually, when there is even a need for investigation for such cases, criminal activity is already happening in your company. Therefore, it is wise to believe that prevention is better than cure in the case of corporate fraud.

It is imperative that every corporation develops a fraud prevention strategy to prevent such destructive behaviors from ruining businesses. Our fraud investigators also offer more than normal investigation. They specialize in the aforementioned covert surveillance and background checks on prospective employees.

5 February 2020

When we talk about crime scenes in this day and age, there are so many possible scenarios other than the standard investigations of physical fingerprints, blood splatter analysis, and even footprints. To be more specific, cyber-crime has become such as major problem with advancements in technology. It can be hard to track cyber criminals because they hardly leave any physical trails. As a result, investigators heavily rely on digital forensics to solve such cases. Here at International Investigative Group, we specialize in digital forensic investigations that can help with any cyber-crime issue you might have.

What Exactly is Digital Forensics?

Essentially, digital forensics is the process in which digital evidence is gathered from various devices or networks and infrastructures. This can include mobile devices, computers, cloud storage systems or even smart phones. Such data and evidence can be gathered from many different sources of information, such as emails and deleted files that might be accessed by a hacker. For cyber-crime, a digital forensic expert would analyze the information collected and report the situation to the relevant authorities. Below are some notable cases which were solved using digital forensics.

Krenar Lusha in 2009

As a result of analyzing the internet search patterns of this illegal immigrant living in the United Kingdom, Derby authorities were able to make an appropriate arrest. It was actually discovered that Krenar Lusha downloaded a substantial amount of information on how to make detonators, explosives and search belts from the internet. Furthermore, when the police received their search warrant for his apartment, they managed to find him in the process of downloading video films called “The Hezbollah Military Instructions Manual and Mobile Detonators”. Authorities also found copious amounts of petrol bomb components (71.8 Liters of petrol), firearm ammunition, 14 cell phones (to be used for detonating explosive devices) and computer documents called “Ragnar’s Detonators” and “The Bomb Book”. It was found that he had also corresponded with people on the internet and posed as a terrorist who had ill intentions toward Jewish people and Americans.

Tony Porter, of the North West Counter Terrorism Unit, stated: “While there is absolutely no indication of what he intended to do with these items, I believe he had the intention of committing an extremely serious offense – I cannot possibly speculate on when or where.” After concluding that the accumulated information and data on his computer would be used solely for terrorism, he was found guilty on all 5 charges brought against him. Lusha was sentenced to 7 years in prison in the United Kingdom and was deported to his home country of Albania upon his release. The Judge described him as putting up the facade of being a pleasant and hardworking man who was trying to make a new life for himself and start a family, but behind his act, he was a man with only the intention of bringing violence and destruction upon others. Thankfully, with the use of digital forensics, his violent plot was stopped before it could even occur.

Larry Jo Thomas in 2016

The Indianapolis man was found guilty for the murder of Rito Llamas-Juarez in an attempted robbery, as the men were meeting for Thomas to sell Juarez a used iPhone via the OfferUp app. According to eyewitnesses, each party was accompanied by two others and during the transaction. Thomas then pulled out a firearm and said “Give us everything you got”. Witnesses say that he then fired at Juarez who was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. One of Juarez’s relatives ran away on foot, while the other drove away with him in the car, where Juarez tragically died.

In Thomas’ case, investigators managed to link him to the murder because of the content that he posted on his Facebook account. The IMPD was able to link his OfferUp account to his Facebook account where he was using a handle called “Slaughtaboi Larro”. He posted photos that showed him equipped with an assault rifle that resembled an AR-15. In Rito Llamas-Juarez’s murder, it was found that he was killed with ammunition that matched the weapon which Thomas owned. Furthermore, a bracelet which matched the bracelet that Thomas was wearing in one of the photos was found at the crime scene. In 2016, Thomas was sentenced to 55 years in prison and another 3 years in community corrections.

Matt Baker In 2010

This Baptist preacher was found guilty of murdering his wife, Kari. Before he was linked to the murder, his wife was reported to have committed suicide via overdosing on sleeping pills. However, it was found on his computer that Baker had searched for information regarding overdosing and had visited several drug websites before his wife died.

The investigation was launched by his wife’s family, who claimed that suicide was not in her nature and found it suspicious that Baker had given his Kari’s phone to another woman after his she had died. It was later found out that Baker was having an affair with this woman. Kari’s therapist even said that she had mentioned that she felt her husband was out to get her and suspected that he was having an affair. Unfortunately, this alone was not enough evidence to convict Baker with her murder.

After the woman who Baker had an affair with came forward about some disturbing things that he had said about his wife in private, police reopened the case and investigated Baker’s search history for the days ensuing Kari’s death. It was found that he had searched numerous internet pharmaceutical websites for different drugs that would have fatal consequences upon overdose. One of those drugs was Ambien, which was found in high amounts in Kari’s body during her autopsy. This was the evidence that cracked the case and led to his conviction for the murder of his wife. Thanks to digital forensics, after only 8 hours of discussion by the jury, the “Murdering Minister” was sentenced to 65 years in prison.

Mikayla Munn in 2016

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This Manchester University student was found guilty of neglecting her newborn child. In the story originally given to Indiana police by Munn, she claimed that she did not know that she was pregnant at the time and took a bath to deal with what she believed to be menstruation pains. She claims to have passed out and found the newborn submerged underwater and not breathing when she awoke. Something about this story didn’t seem right, so an investigation was launched to find the truth about what really happened.

Investigators were able to disprove her story by using digital forensics and Munn’s internet search history as evidence. The authorities attributed her baby’s death to Munn’s online searches on how to abort a baby at home and how to cut the umbilical cord. It was eventually found that she drowned her newborn in a dormitory bathtub immediately after giving birth, making the trial a homicide case.

With this evidence brought to light, Munn pleaded guilty to the charges brought against her and acknowledged her actions and their consequences. She was sentenced to a 12 years in prison with 3 years suspended to formal probation in 2016.

Ross Compton in 2017

In this one of a kind case, the data from Compton’s pacemaker actually served as evidence in court. The data, which included his heart rates and pacer demand helped to prove that he had actually submitted fake medical certificates and engaged in insurance fraud and arson of his $400,000 home.

Compton claims that he was asleep when his house caught on fire. He states that when he awoke and saw the blaze, he quickly packed clothes and other belongings into bags and leaped from his bedroom window with his belongings to get to safety after breaking it with a cane. Police later found that this statement from Compton proved to be inconsistent with the evidence that they later found after collecting reports from his pacemaker before, during and after the fire took place.

According to documents provided by the court, a cardiologist who reviewed reports from Compton’s pacemaker stated that is highly unlikely that Compton quickly packed numerous belongings and exited the house with several bags from a bedroom window. This is especially hard to believe at Compton’s age of 60 and his heart condition. The Cardiologist was quoted as stating: “It is highly improbable Mr. Compton would have been able to collect, pack and remove the number of items from the house, exit his bedroom window and carry numerous large and heavy items to the front of his residence during the short period of time he has indicated due to his medical conditions.” The case is still currently pending, as the defense is appealing the court’s decision to allow the use of Compton’s pacemaker data as evidence. However, if it is allowed, the use of digital forensics can be accredited with putting out the flames of Compton’s insurance fraud inferno.

If you need professional assistance any type of corporate/private investigation, physical security, or cyber security, do not hesitate to contact us at hello@iigpi.com, or at (212) 987-0808

9 January 2020

CEO Dan Ribacoff, a private investigator, credibility assessment expert, and polygraph examiner, was asked how to detect lies when the use of the polygraph is not available.

Check out the following article to see Dan Ribacoff P.I.’s responses on:

1. Why We Lie
2. The Brain and How We Lie
3. Lie Detection in Speech and Conversation

Your brain really goes into ‘rev the engine’ mode when you lie

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

When you give me the truth, your brain is not working very hard, because it’s accessing information that is already there or not there. When you want to lie, your brain must work harder

9 January 2020

How can we prevent Employee Theft? Dan Ribacoff says that we can take these steps in order to identify and prevent it.

The number one cause of loss of inventory for businesses across the world.

Employee theft is defined as the stealing or misuse of an employer’s assets without permission. Some of these common assets that employees can steal are:

Money: This is the most common asset that is stolen in most businesses.

Time: Getting paid for time that they were not working.

Information: Stealing ideas or even the blueprint for a product.

Supplies: Most common in taking office supplies or even food from restaurants.

Most of the time, employee theft can go on for multiple years before it is noticed. It is very common in all work places and no matter how big or how small, it eventually all adds up.

How can I prevent employee theft?

Our partners over at LegalScreen have shared some telling signs to spot employee theft:

“What are the signs of employee theft?”

This is what we are here for.

Performing background checks for all employees is the number one way to prevent this from happening. With these background checks, you can determine if the potential hire has a higher risk of stealing from you, in which case they will not be hired. These background checks are very simple and very important to a business. A very simple process can go a long way for your business in the long run.

Another way to prevent employee theft is by hiring a Private Investigator. This will show your employees and potential employees how serious you are. It gives the employees a zero tolerance policy. If you suspect theft or fraud within your company, have the Private Investigator get to the bottom of it, one less task for you as a manager to worry about.

Private Investigators are commonly used to conduct surveillance on potential suspects, perform audits of security and operational procedures, and conduct computer forensics on company owned equipment.

9 January 2020

A major WiFi flaw has been discovered and your passwords may no-longer be safe. Researchers today have revealed a new exploit titled KRACK, which makes use of flaws and vulnerabilities in WiFi security to allow attackers to monitor your activity.

If your device supports WiFi, it is most likely affected.

Dan Ribacoff says that these vulnerabilities would allow attackers to:

Intercept Passwords
Intercept Emails
Intercept Credit Card Numbers
Intercept Photos
Intercept Website History
Intercept Other Data Thought to Be Encrypted
Possibly Install Ransomware

Dan Ribacoff’s Recommendation #1:

Update Your Routers and Operating Systems on Devices Used to Access the Internet.

Dan Ribacoff’s Recommendation #2:

If browsing on a vulnerable access point, avoid using Wi-Fi and stick with a wired connection.

9 January 2020

In this post, Dan Ribacoff breaks down a few basic steps that he recommends in order to ensure the protection of you and your online business.

As a small business owner, there are many things you can do from a security perspective to prevent trouble.

It’s never too late to take implement basic steps and protocols to protect you and your business online.

Prepare for 2018:

Tips for Small Business Owners To Prevent Your Company from Being Hacked:

Use a Secure and Encrypted Messaging App

Use applications where you can control how the data is backed up and when it’s backed up.

We recommend:

Change Passwords Every 60 Days.

Seems excessive, huh? Well it is — but for good reason.

It might be annoying but It’s quick, it’s easy easy, it costs nothing and it’s actually effective!

Just because you haven’t been a victim of a hack before doesn’t mean you’re safe. Be preventative and change your passwords!

Check if you’re account email and password has been compromised here:

Haveibeenpwned.com

Install an AntiVirus Software

Antivirus software is not 100% fool proof buts is a great first line of defense. Further, it’s always running in the background to provide active protection on things you might overlook.

Access Your Work and Private Accounts from Trusted Devices and Trusted Networks Only

Anytime you type in a password, you’re a potential victim of a keylogger, spyware or packet sniffer.